Sylvia Olsen was born and brought up in Victoria, B.C. She married into the Tsartlip First Nation when she was seventeen, and for more than thirty years she has lived and worked and raised her four children in the Tsartlip community. She returned to school at age thirty-five and earned a master's degree in history, specializing in Native/white relations in Canada. As a writer, she often finds herself exploring the in-between place where Native and non-Native people meet. Sylvia currently works in the area of First Nations community management, with a focus on reserve housing.

The Girl With a Baby

You are the same girl that came to school last year. They are the same kids. But nothing was the same and I knew it. I had become the girl with a baby. Jane has always been the good Williams. Her brothers might be high school dropouts and late-night rowdy partiers, but never Jane. Jane never drinks, smokes dope or misses a single day of school. She's in the drama club . . . smart and hot . . . one of the popular ones.

Or she used to be. Now she's one of those: the teenage mothers packing diaper bags with their knapsacks, wheeling strollers into the high school daycare, tired and grumpy. Jane's only 14, younger than most of them, and she can feel the stares in the school halls. She can hear the whispers on her whitebread street, too: too bad, gone the way of her brothers, guess those Indians are all the same.

Just Ask Us
A Conversation with First Nations Teenage Moms

Teen moms are nothing new. For as long as anyone can remember, families, communities, and governments have been grappling with the poverty and lack of life opportunities faced by these parents and their children.

Just Ask Us takes a comprehensive, first-hand look at First Nations teen mothers, offering ways to counteract the intractable cycle of poverty and turn reserve communities into places of hope for the next generation. Olsen explores issues of teenage sexuality and relationships, birth control, abortion, and violence. She examines aboriginal and non-aboriginal cultural attitudes and practices and how they affect the lives of young moms and their children. Her book weaves the threads of these young mothers' lives together with colours of desperation, enthusiasm, impossibility, and hope.

FIRST NATIONS NON-FICTION • 160 pp • 6 x 9
ISBN 1-55039-152-6 • paper • $19.95

No Time to Say Goodbye
Children’s Stories of Kuper Island Residential School
with Rita Morris and Ann Sam

No Time to Say Goodbye is a fictional account of five children sent to aboriginal boarding school, based on the recollections of a number of Tsartlip First Nations people. These unforgettable children are taken by government agents from Tsartlip Day School to live at Kuper Island Residential School. The five are isolated on the small island and life becomes regimented by the strict school routine. They experience the pain of homesickness and confusion while trying to adjust to a world completely different from their own. Their lives are no longer organized by fishing, hunting and family, but by bells, line-ups and chores. In spite of the harsh realities of the residential school, the children find adventure in escape, challenge in competition, and camaraderie with their fellow students.

Juvenile, 175 pp, 5¼ x 7¾
ISBN 1-55039-121-6, $9.95

Which Way Should I Go?
with Ron Martin
Illustrated by Kasia Charko

Following on the heels of the much-lauded Yetsa's Sweater, versatile author Sylvia Olsen again brings her storytelling gifts to picture book readers. Which Way Should I Go? is a moving story, based on the memories and the direction of Olsen's friend Ron Martin, that handles a tender subject with a light and deft touch.

All families, and especially those who have lost a loved one, will enjoy storytime with this beautiful, touching book.

32 pp • 8 x 10
ISBN 1-55039-161-5 • hardcover • $19.95
full colour

White Girl

I never thought about being white. I didn't have to. I was transparent--no colour at all. I hung out, was a good enough student and no one paid any special attention to me at all. Then I became a white girl.

Until she was fourteen, Josie was pretty ordinary. Then her Mom meets Martin, "a real ponytail Indian," and before long, Josie finds herself living on a reserve outside town, with a new stepfather, a new stepbrother, and a new name--"Blondie." In town, white was the ambient noise, the no-colour background. On the reserve, she's White, and most seem to see her only for her blond hair and blue eyes.

Teen Fiction • 200 pp • 5¼ x 7¾
ISBN 1-55039-147-X • paper • $9.95
Ages 12+

Yetsa's Sweater
Illustrated by Joan Larson

BC Bestseller

From the author of No Time To Say Goodbye, The Girl with a Baby, White Girl, and Just Ask Us comes a tender and joyful picture book, perfect for sharing. In Yetsa's Sweater, Sylvia Olsen takes a workaday chore and illuminates it with meaning, while Joan Larson takes Olsen's simple and loving words and fills them with radiant light.

On a fresh spring day, young Yetsa, her mother and her grandmother gather to prepare the sheep fleeces piled in Grandma's yard. As they clean, wash and dry the fleece, laughter and hard work connect the three generations. Through Yetsa's sensual experience of each task, the reader joins this family in an old but vibrant tradition: the creation of Cowichan sweaters. Each sweater is unique, and its design tells a story. In Yetsa's Sweater, that story is one of love, welcome and pride in a job well done.

ILLUSTRATED PICTUREBOOK, 40 pp, 8 x 10
ISBN 1-55039-155-0, paper, $19.95